The Invincible Shovel, Vol. 1 by Yasohachi Tsuchise, Hagure Yuuki
Series Name: The Invincible Shovel (Light Novel)
Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
Intended Age Group: Teen
Publisher: Seven Seas
Edition: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-64505-442-9
Rating: 1/5
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Description from the Book
The strongest miner in the world, Alan can reduce mountains to rubble with a swing of his trusty shovel—a legendary tool that grants him immortal life and can blast through the strongest of foes. When this legendary miner teams up with a runaway princess to track down cursed jewels and save her kingdom from an invading demon force, evil doesn’t stand a chance! A hilarious fantasy tale for fans of RPGs, with adventure…in spades!
Personal & Info
My light novel collection is currently rather small, so I’m gradually trying to expand it. Part of my process for doing that is getting my hands on some first volumes of things to try. This book is one of those volumes.
Shortly before reading this, I did a little research. It turns out that there are only four available volumes, and no new content has been added or announced since around 2020. The series is currently considered unfinished, and likely abandoned by the author, so keep that in mind if you decide to get into it.
Characters
Alan is the main character. He is a 1,011-year-old miner who lives alone on a mountain. His social skills are not great, but his shovel power is unmatched.
Lithisia is the fifteen-year-old princess of Rostir. She is first in line for her throne, and she needs help to save her kingdom from a demon villain by the name of Zeleburg.
Catria is Lithisia’s friend and sworn protector. She’s an embarrassment of a knight, and seems to be the only person in the story that has any common sense.
Fioriel is the last elf, and descendent of one of Alan’s friends. Alan considers her to be his niece.
Alice Veknarl is the last queen of Riften, and undead heir to the power of Veknar.
Julia is a water priestess from the Rahal tribe.
Story & Thoughts
This…This is not good. There is so much wrong with it. I had concerns early on when Lithisia explained the plot.
Lithisia, the princess of Rostir, goes into a long-winded explanation about why she is not in her castle, and why she needs help. At first, this description sounds very similar to the situation with Jafar and Jasmine from Aladdin. But as she goes on to say she has a body double covering for her, I can’t help but wonder why the villain can’t just force the body double into marriage and make everyone think he married Lithisia. Her story seems to have a significant amount of potential problematic holes in it.
After that, everything just becomes absolutely ridiculous. The characters are more like caricatures. Lithisia becomes hyper-religious about shovels, to the point she very obviously wants to turn her country into a cult. Her personality becomes the embodiment of shovel worship. I know the intention is to be for comedy, but it just paints her as a complete airhead and makes her annoying. Her friend Catria is the only person who does not buy into her new shovel religion.
Another aspect of the story I find annoying, everything has to be thought of as erotic or an innuendo. The joke is that girls want Alan sexually, but he’s too dense to realize it, because in his mind, there is no way that could possibly be what they want. I think the book does a poor job with this kind of humor. It’s like it’s trying to be a harem without actually committing to being a harem since the dude isn’t interested in anybody.
I guess, the long of the short is, it feels too try hard. I know it’s absurdist comedy, but I think it could still be that and be written better. It says it’s for teens, but the humor feels more juvenile than that age group despite a lot of it being sexual jokes.
Maybe it’s just not my kind of comedy, but I genuinely did not enjoy this. I have no interest in reading more volumes, so my copy will be going into the donate pile. If you want to read something good with absurdist humor, I recommend JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.